By Charlie Leffler
Champaign, Illinois–Even though they were down 17-10 at the half, the No. 25 ranked Cardinals probably were not worried. After all, they had proven time and again over the last two seasons that being behind at the break was not a problem for them. Yet, when miscue after miscue mounted, so did the Illini score. The end result was Illinois coming away with a misleading 34-10 win. In reality, it should have been much worse.
Louisville head coach John L. Smith indicated that the Cards previous second half shutouts left them believing they could come back from anything. “I keep telling them that it’s not going to happen,” Smith said. “You are kidding yourselves. You’re setting yourself up to get your tail kicked because you are kidding yourselves.” And a tail kicking is what they got.
Neither the Cardinal offense nor the defense seemed in sync throughout a large portion of the game as the Illini gained much of its yardage on long pass plays in the first half and with a decisive running game in the second. By the middle of the third quarter a few Illini fans were chanting “overrated.” At the 11:27 mark of the fourth quarter, Illinois scored on a 6-yard run by Antoine Harris and pushed the lead to 34-10. Then, the entire stadium took up the chant.
Louisville’s defense became so ineffective that at one point it appeared the only player capable of stopping the Illini from scoring was JJ Tubbs, the Illinois place kicker. After scoring a field goal on the Illini’s initial drive, Tubbs would have been better off kicking himself. Tubbs second field goal attempt was wide right. His third hit the upright and the Cards’ defensive end Dewayne White blocked his fourth. After that Illini coach Ron Turner had seen enough. When Illinois got within field goal range once again he sent in backup place kicker Perter Christofilakos. He responded with a 30-yard field goal that barely made it through over the cross bar to push the Illinois lead to 27-10. The Cards defense gave up 504 yards in the game.
Because sophomore defensive back Josh Minkins was injured, redshirt freshman JT Haskins was forced into duty, and from the beginning it appeared that the Illinois offense had their eyes set on testing him. For much of the game, the 6’1″ Haskins was matched up against the Illini’s 6’5″ Walter Young. “Eighteen (Young) was pretty long out there,” Haskins said, “he made me feel like a midget out there.” Young finished the game with four catches for 90-yards, one of which was a 38-yard bomb over Haskins’ head for a TD.
“We were asking freshman to cover some good players,” Smith said. “The young guys gave up some big plays . . . They’re outmatched physically and we didn’t have a chance.”
Yet, as the second half began, it finally appeared that Louisville might have things going their way. On the Illini’s first posession, the Cardinal defense forced them to punt after three plays. On the punt Louisville wide receiver Deion Branch returned the ball 79-yards for a touchdown. Naturally, with the way things had gone so far in the game, the play was called back due to a Cardinal penalty. Branch said. “We just needed something to happen. We had the opportunity and we capitalized off of it, but there was a flag. I know the guys were going hard, so I’m not mad at all.”
“That killed us,” Smith said. “We had a little bit of momentum, then we do something like that . . . ”
The Cards finished the game with 13 penalties for 111 yards.
Smith was nearly left speechless by the numerous mental mistakes that his team showed. “There’s not a lot to talk about,” Smith said, “over and over again… Every time we turn around we had a penalty. If we weren’t doing that we were turning the ball over.”
Louisville had entered the game ranked second in the nation in turnovers forced. They left the game having three fumbles of their own, losing two of them.
Both teams came into the game looking to prove their running games. Illinois proved that they do indeed have a running game by racking up 207 yards on 42 carries. Louisville proved that they have a long way to go by netting only 29 yards on 25 carries. The Cards only managed 9-yards on the ground in the second half.
“We couldn’t run it,” Smith said. “I’m not even sure we could’ve run it the other direction . . . We’ve got to look at everything on this. If we can’t run it, it’s due to two things. We’re not blocking somebody up front, we’re not running it, or a combination of both. And probably, most likely and assuredly, both.”
As expected, the quarterbacks of both teams produced most of the yardage. Illinois’ Kurt Kittner finished the game 18 of 39 for 301 yards with two interceptions. It took quarterback Dave Ragone nearly four minutes into the game before he threw his first completion. The Louisville quarterback finished the game 22 for 39 for 309 yards and three interceptions.
On their first possession, the Illini marched 43 yards in eight plays but came away with only a 29-yard field goal. After both teams exchanged possessions it appeared that Louisville was getting on track. Ragone hit Branch on a 70-yard bomb and he was knocked out of bounds at the Illini three-yard line. Even then, it took the Cards four plays to get the ball into the endzone on a 3-yard pass to tight end Ronnie Ghent at the 2:40 mark of the first quarter.
It was only a sign of things to come when the Cardinal defense allowed Illinois a 20-second drive for 80 yards in three plays and score on a 9-yard pass from Kittner to Carey Davis.
The only other Cardinal score came on a 43-yard field goal by Nathan Smith with 4:15 left in the first half. The field goal was the only bright spot in a period stretching from the 56-second mark of the first quarter to the 11:15 mark of the third. Other than the field goal, during that time period the Cardinals had 11 straight possessions that ended with five punts and three interceptions.
“Illinois made some good plays,” said Ragone. “A couple of them were tips; it’s just the way the ball falls.”
Now the Cards will need to regroup for their first conference game against Memphis next week in Louisville. Even with the loss, their goals of winning the conference championship and sending the seniors out as winners are still intact.
